The present invention relates generally to alarm reporting systems, and in particular, to an alarm reporting system which makes use of a cellular radio transceiver to establish communications between a remote location and a central monitoring facility.
In an effort to satisfy the ever-increasing need for the remote monitoring of various premises, including both business and home applications, a variety of security systems have been developed to establish effective communications between a remotely located alarm monitoring device and a central monitoring facility. Many of these systems are generally described in my earlier co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No 062,174, filed Jun. 12, 1987 and entitled "Supervised, Interactive Alarm Reporting System".
Described are both relatively simple, as well as more comprehensive systems for establishing communications between the remote location to be monitored and the central monitoring facility. In each case, means are provided for alerting the central monitoring facility when an alarm condition is indicated (for the simpler configurations) or verified (for the more comprehensive systems). However, heightened reliability is achieved in accordance with the invention described in my earlier U.S. patent application Ser. No. 062,174 by providing an alarm reporting system which has a local terminal comprised of a supervised derived channel communicator, and a one-way radio communicator, interconnected by a control unit which provides for interactive operation of the derived channel unit and the radio transmitter according to the alarm conditions which may arise at the premises, and the existing condition of the equipment comprising the local terminal. Such an alarm reporting system has been found to be particularly useful in effectively and reliably advising a central monitoring facility of a potential alarm condition irrespective of conditions at the remote location, or efforts to tamper with the alarm reporting system.
Irrespective of the system which is used, once it is determined that a potential alarm condition exists and that the system is to be exercised to advise the central monitoring facility of this potential alarm condition, steps must be taken to make sure that data developed at the remote location is effectively transmitted to the central monitoring facility to make sure that the potential alarm condition is correctly reported.
Generally, alarm data is developed within a control panel which receives data from one or more sensors positioned throughout the remote premises which is being monitored, and which interprets the data which is received to determine the occurrence of an alarm condition. If an alarm condition is detected, a digital communicator is operated to send an appropriate message to the remote monitoring facility. Traditionally, wired communications or dedicated radio communications have been used to interconnect the control panel and the remote monitoring facility. However, with the increased availability of cellular radio communications, and the advent of more comprehensive alarm reporting systems which advantageously use such radio communications, it remained to develop a system for assuring effective communications between a remote location and a central monitoring facility irrespective of the particular communicating medium being employed.